He Was the Moon
by Endoh
Summary: “Leave my dreams as you’ve left my life.” But he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, he hadn’t. He was the Moon, but so was she. And in the light of the Moon and the cover of dreams, he went to her. SasuSaku —NC17 DARKfic—
1. Chapter 1: New Moon ::Rewrite::

**REWRITE: I'm rewriting the first chapters of this story because they needed improvement. Sorry if it comes as an inconvenience to you, my wonderful readers, but I can't go on with the story until it's fixed. The process shouldn't take me too long. :( Sorry, again!**

-

"Leave my dreams as you've left my life." But he couldn't, he wouldn't, he _hadn't_. He was the Moon, but so was she. And in the light of the Moon and the cover of dreams, he went to her.

Beta(s): Looking or someone to beta this fic; application information is available on my profile.

Sasuke x Sakura

Raiting: NC17 (Extremely dark themes, extremely graphic, explicit sexual content -NC17-)

A ridiculously long oneshot turned short story, this fic explores the grief and guilt and agony and anger and lust and love and sorrow and just plain pain of a certain kunoichi to an extreme. There is no happy ending. If you can see the beauty of a crushed soul, blood, graphic sex, and tragic death, then you would most likely enjoy this story.

-

I would like to reiterate one last time: "He Was the Moon": **is not for the faint of heart; this story is disturbing and not meant for those incapable of handling mature situations**.

-

_I wrote this intending it to be read __very slowly__. It started off as an extremely long oneshot, but I decided to make it a short story. –Sigh- This story is __dark__. It explores grief and guilt and agony and anger and lust and love and sorrow and just plain pain to an extreme. You have been warned for the impending darkness and mature material. Listening to my suggested song really adds so much more to it, or it did while I was writing it. Also, a bit of knowledge of the phases of the moon would be a good idea._

-

Jukebox: "Lost" by _Red _

* * *

"He Was the Moon"

月

Chapter One: New Moon

She was a ninja, a shinobi since the age of twelve, but she never looked the part: She was always too delicate, too much of a distressed damsel. But she had become strong. She trained and trained until she became a master healer and proud kunoichi. She gained respect through her hard work, but there was one who had never acknowledged her—the one she wanted more than _any_ other to see her true strength.

_But he'll never see me, _she told herself, _b__ecause he'll never come back. _

Every day she thought of him. Every day she desired him. Every day she wanted to make him feel loved. Every day she wanted to heal him as only she could. Every day she wanted to breathe life into him, to make him feel alive again.

_But I never will…._

-

She had a routine because having a routine meant no surprises. Having a routine meant everything was orderly; having a routine meant she wouldn't have to face new (_painful_) things. Having a routine meant she had control of one god damn thing in her fucking life. It was some sort of flighty security (but it wasn't).

Her nightly routine consisted of this: returning to an empty house after training or completing a mission; not thinking of him; picking at a silent dinner; not thinking of him; washing the dishes; not thinking of him; locating a change of clothes; _not _thinking about him; stripping down to take an icy shower in a (forever-failing) attempt to numb herself, to just end her pain for a moment; _NOT _thinking about him; stepping under the pelting, freezing water; _NOT _fucking thinking about him; morphing her fists into tight balls; digging her sharp nails into her giving skin; attempting to feel only the continuous flow of sanguine caressing over her hands; wanting to focus only on the way her knuckles turned white from the strain; _NOT FUCKING THINKING ABOUT HIM; _desperately trying to disband the memory of a certain red and white crest; frantically attempting to cease the rivers gushing from her eyes; **NOT FUCKING THINKING ABOUT HIM**; clawing so desperately at the shower tiles while collapsing under the harsh, spurting water; leaving bloody-red evidence of her failure to **NOT FUCKING THINK ABOUT HIM **in the form of infinitely long, incarnadine stripes; shrieking nonsense, screaming great, ridiculous sobs of anger, self-loathing, guilt, sorrow, and heartbreak (that no one cared to hear); dragging her knees to herself; gripping them in her bloodied, red hands (which she found so sickly fitting); ultimately silencing herself and letting only her tears escape; climbing out of the glacial shower; not thinking of him; throwing her naked, soaking body on her bed, shredded palms to be healed tomorrow (because she secretly enjoyed—loved, couldn't get enough of—feeling the only fucking proof that she was still alive pouring out of her; because she enjoyed feeling the pain she knew so damn well she deserved); finally giving in to her thoughts about him, relenting to another nightmarish yet dreamless Night.

(Really, there was no security for her, only endless anguish.)

-

It truly is the worst to be alone because, when one is alone, one's mind is free to travel to the furthest galaxies, the deepest depths of any ocean, the most barren of deserts, the highest of stars, and, of course, the fiery pits of one's own personal, inexorable hell.

-

It was any other day in her village, and, as always, she followed her routine, allowing her aching body to give into the tempting thoughts of _him_. Only this time, she had done more damage to her hands than usual. The abnormal amount of physical pain was adding too much to her overload of agony, so she simply healed them, crumpling her stiff, red fingers and allowing her chakra to seep out through the pads of her fingertips. She snorted at herself in bitter amusement.

_I've made an effort to stop the pain, but there are some wounds I'll never heal no matter how many hours I spend studying medicine. How useless medicine is! How useless _I _am! To be incapable of healing the worst wounds of all! _

It was just too funny, and she couldn't control her outburst; her laughter quickly changed to the opposite, and her hot tears lulled her into a black, motionless state she had long since grown to call _sleep_.

-

And he was there, sitting stoically on her windowsill; he was there as plainly as the big, blinding moon behind him, moonlit shadows cavorting across his pale features, illuminating them in the most ethereal, godly way. His long, midnight locks blended perfectly with the night sky, but his skin! Oh, his skin—it shone so brightly, so beautifully that he must have been crystalline, a solid diamond before her. His long body's outer covering was so unreal and angelic, but his shadowy, stone eyes! They held such suffering and fire and hate and passion and sanguinary intent! Yet he sat in a tranquil manner: His right knee was propped up on the sill with his right elbow resting atop it while the other hung loosely off it.

He just stared. She just stared.

He made no move. She made no move.

And then he smirked; when his luscious, plump lips crooked into that deadly gesture, her breath left her body behind in the dust. She rose robotically from her thin sheets and blinked at him, gasping silently.

His smirk grew. Her disbelief grew.

And then she stopped blinking, stopped for the fear of winking it all away.

But he vanished.

She let out a choked, ragged, silent scream.

_No…! _

But he gracefully, elegantly reappeared in front of her with a small puff of smoke tousling his flowing locks, crouching before her and smirking as a single rivulet graced her cold cheek. She inhaled a labored breath. A long, marble finger as cold as ice swept the water away, leaving a searing trail of steaming frost in its wake. Her verdant eyes widened, widened until they were the same as the moon. His crooked smile lifted upward again.

…_I've finally lost it. I'm crazy._

His expression showed he could read her thoughts.

_I _am_ insane…._

And then she was angry, angrier than she had been in years.

_I'm crazy! I'm fucking crazy?!_

And she resorted to her lovely habit: She made a move to tear her (forever) sharp nails into her palms. But he was too fast for her—always had been and always would be. He grasped her frozen fingers in his and shook his head with a mocking grin so much worse than those years before.

And she glared at him, glared at him for all she was worth. Then she burst out in bizarre laughter again. _What a miserable, hysterical hallucination this is! …And I've fucking had enough. _"Let go," she hissed. "Vanish!" She attempted to rip her hands from his steel (yet gentle), burning grip and failed. "I said, _let go_, damn it! _Vanish_!"

And he did, and she fell back into silent screams. He was gone as silently as he had come.

She brought her quaking hands to her head and pulled viciously at her hair, her eyes stricken, wide, and wet. She curled up as tightly as she could and rolled to her side.

Her trembling lips formed the words, "No…no…no…no…no…no…" The utterances reverberated in her mind, creating deafening echoes of impossible volume. "...No...no...no..."

Again, she had lost him.

As always, she was lost in him.

* * *

_So concludes chapter one of my short story. It's going to be about nine-ish chapters long with similar lengths to this one. I've written the first seven, and I know how I'm going to end it, but my perfectionism will undoubtedly force me to fiddle and tinker with it some more. There __will__ be rather sexually explicit scenes. _

_So, I'd like to thank you for reading my first rewritten chapter of "He Was the Moon" (affectionately abbreviated as "HWM"). I hope you'll continue to do so. _(:

**Reviews of constructive criticism and praise are always appreciated, so I hope you will take the time to do so.**

**Please take the time to review.**

**XOXO**

**Endoh**


	2. Chapter 2: Waxing Crescent

"Leave my dreams as you've left my life." But he couldn't, he wouldn't, he _hadn't_. He was the Moon, but so was she. And in the light of the Moon and the cover of dreams, he went to her.

-

This short story is dark, and it contains sexually explicit and graphic material along with other mature material. You've been warned.

_-_

_I wrote this intending it to be read __very slowly__. It started off as an extremely long oneshot, but I decided to make it a short story. –Sigh- This story is __dark__. It explores grief and guilt and agony and anger and lust and love and sorrow and just plain pain to an extreme. You have been warned for the impending darkness and mature material. Listening to my suggested song really adds so much more to it, or it did while I was writing it. Also, a bit of knowledge of the phases of the moon would be a good idea._

Dark! NC17!

Jukebox: "Already Over" by _Red_

(You'll notice most, if not all, of my suggested songs are by this band. I highly recommend them.)

* * *

"He Was the Moon"

月

Chapter Two: Waxing Crescent

She blinked her swollen eyes, and she slowly declared herself freed of her first nightmare of him (with his true face featured in it).

_Why? Why does even my subconscious insist on torturing me?! Now he even has me questioning my sanity! Do I not get enough during the day?! Is it not enough he's all I think about when I'm awake?! Now he must invade my dreams, my supposed 'haven'?!_

But he had always invaded everything she could consider a _haven_—her heart, her mind, her dreams, her soul, her entire life—all taken (or soon to be).

The next day, she did as she was expected to do. She didn't pretend her life wasn't a freezing hell filled with icy bitterness and heated rage, but she completed her mission without fail. As a chuunin, she did her job without complaint. And after her grueling, month-long mission ended, she returned to her empty apartment, needing nothing more than a fucking hour of _restful_ sleep, but knowing it was impossible.

The last of her dreaded, tortuous routine (bawling and bleeding in bed) took place around twelve in the morning (because she was putting it off as long as she could, but it was a pointless attempt), and it felt sickly _refreshing_ to complete the ritual uninterrupted after being away on such a long mission. Weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds of withholding her tears left her shaken and in need of release. She had been deprived of her only form of liberation for an entire month, and it left her at wit's end (if she hadn't already been there before…). She shortly fell into restless unconsciousness, relieved that she had gone an entire month without _him _haunting her in the few hours she had thought to be free (but she was never free—not of him at least).

-

But not this time: He was there—oh, he was there, just as he had been there on the last full moon, and she felt him. Her emerald eyes flew open and shot daggers into his stygian pools. Her eyes whispered, "Drop dead." Yet they still managed to translate her love for him in such a minute way it was something only a dojutsu user could pinpoint.

He tossed her a drop-dead beautiful smirk, but she resisted his hex.

"Leave my dreams as you've left my life," she murmured darkly, and then she smiled. "I suppose it's useless to order my nightmares to do anything. I can do nothing but wait for the damn thing to end…. Shit. I _am _crazy...so, so, _so_, crazy…." She spoke more to herself than the man sitting in her window. She laughed aloud. "Oh? Are you supposed to be symbolic? Is that it? Haha…haha! Please! My mind is so fucked up as it is.…" She paused. "Mother-fucking dreams," she ground out, and then she flashed him a crooked smirk to match his own. _I have outwitted you, my cruel hallucination. Pain has never solved any of my problems before…but this one…. _She made a move to inconspicuously rake her nails at her hands (as usual), but he stopped her as he had done previously, appearing inches before she could even notice his absence from her view. And she didn't have time to try anything else because his hands were on her, his eyes gouged into hers, his lips lifted into his perfect smile, and she was caught up in him—just as she had and always would be.

Long, cool fingers airily traced her lips and cheeks, and she wanted to recoil, to retreat, yet she could not; she was frozen under his cold yet scorching touch. She could only tremble slightly as his hands drifted over her body lightly, just barely touching her at all. What those grazing fingers did to her, leaving prickling mountains of goose bumps! It just wasn't fair for her to react in such away with just the touch of his hands! The dream was becoming too much for her, and her eyes widened in such a great fear—her life hadn't been this _real _in so long, yet it was a dream, something her mind had conjured up! She hadn't felt anything other than a medley of anger and pain and guilt in so many months that even _fear _was welcomed.

Fear? It did not make sense. Why would she fear the one person she had wanted to reunite with for so long? Because she would become _attached_ to something—attached to a _dream _or a _hallucination _or whatever the fuck this was_._ He had long ago taught her bonds and attachments brought only more agony to a person's life, and being bonded to a flighty _hallucination _would certainly bring her only more turmoil.

She found the strength to twitch her head jaggedly back and forth, but she could not control the streams of water breaking her eyelash dams. And he charily wiped her tears all away, flashing that despicably cocky (yet so beautiful and radiant) grin of his as he did so. Her fury filled her again, and she welcomed it warmly, allowing her wrath to spurt out of her unhindered.

"Touch me again, and I will snap your wrist in two," she spoke gravely. "Get out. Get the hell out. _Get out._ Get out of my dreams, get out of my life! Let me forget you! _Please_… Just _let me forget everything_!"

And for a split second, his deep, dim pools held a tiny flicker of his old, small fire of life, and his grin increased in luminosity.

Then she longed for him, for him to touch her again, to feel his arctic (yet sweltering) grasp anywhere on her. "…No…" she whispered as he stood from her bed. "…I-I'm sorry! _C-come back_!" But he was already out the window, fleeing into the midnight of her dream/hallucination.

She fell back into her cold bed, utterly defeated and empty. "I'm so damn stupid. I'm a fucking idiot!" A sob choked her. "Stupid. I'm insane and stupid and responsible." The last word she uttered shattered any feeble dam she had constructed, and the water flowed from her eyes unhindered. "It's all my fault…all my fault…all my fault…." And her jade eyes closed again to her own guilty mantra. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the night, to the Moon, "I'm sorry for letting you slip away from me, my love…."

_

* * *

Thanks so much for reading! The next installment shall be up soon. (:_

**I can't thank those of you who have reviewed enough. I'm so pleased to have such positive reviews. I hope I continue to deliver. Reviews of constructive criticism and praise are always appreciated, so I hope you will take the time to do so**_._

XOXO

Endoh


	3. Chapter 3: Quarter

"Leave my dreams as you've left my life." But he couldn't, he wouldn't, he _hadn't_. He was the Moon, but so was she. And in the light of the Moon and the cover of dreams, he went to her.

-

This short story is dark, and it contains sexually explicit and graphic material along with other mature material. You've been warned.

_-_

_I wrote this intending it to be read __very slowly__. It started off as an extremely long oneshot, but I decided to make it a short story. –Sigh- This story is __dark__. It explores grief and guilt and agony and anger and lust and love and sorrow and just plain pain to an extreme. You have been warned for the impending darkness and mature material. Listening to my suggested song really adds so much more to it, or it did while I was writing it. Also, a bit of knowledge of the phases of the moon would be a good idea._

Dark! NC17!

I hope you like this chapter. It has a pretty, little scene near the end, which I enjoyed writing.

Oh, and the story is going to progressively become darker and darker… The chapter after this gets a little more intense…and sexual.

Jukebox: "Already Over Part Two" by _Red _(make sure it's PART TWO!)

* * *

"He was the Moon"

月

Chapter Three: Quarter

The next day, she called in sick to the hospital, and she _was. _She wasted the day away in bed, staring out her window, no matter if the angle of the sun blinded her (because she liked the feel of it—physical pain over emotional pain). There was simply no evidence of his having been in her home, and it made her ill.

_Of course not! It was a fucking dream!_

But it felt so _real_!

She wanted to talk to somebody, wanted to share her secret, silent pain with someone, but there was no one. Her supposed best friend was far too conceited to comprehend any of it; her other teammate was probably in another country; she never saw her sensei anymore because of all his missions; her mentor would insist on her taking a break from her missions, and she couldn't have that because missions were her only distractions. It really hit her then; she (ironically) hadn't noticed it before because she had been in a haze since he left. But she finally broke through the veil and realized something she had long since overlooked:

_I am alone._

(Just like him.)

She had but one reason to keep on living.

(Just like him.)

_I hate you! I hate you! I fucking hate you more than the life you made for me or…anything else! _

But it was a lie, as was her life.

_I love you! I love you! I fucking love you more than I love life or myself or…anything else…. _

And _that _was the truth, the sad truth. But from an outsider's stand point, her thoughts were very contradicting; to her, though, they were absolute.

-

It had been years since he had last personally hurt her, but there he was, attacking her passively through her nightmares!

"That's _it_! I won't let him do anymore to me!"

And she got up, raked a brush through her hair, washed her face, slapped on clean clothes, and actually _ate breakfast_. She hadn't done those simple acts in so long because…she just hadn't cared enough. _He _wasn't there, so why waste time brushing her hair or washing her face in the morning? _He _wasn't there, so why attempt to feed herself?

_I won't let you interfere with my fucking life anymore, my love. _

She scurried off to the hospital with a new, roaring determination to gain control over her life again, and she felt nothing at all for nearly an entire month.

Nothing.

At.

All.

-

She had gone through _twenty-eight days_ without any pain, without thinking of him! She had slept at night, she had even eaten, and she had survived as she had before, but she was numb to the world. …And she couldn't decide if she loathed her previous state of constant agony or her present state of perpetual deadness more; they were both pure hell. People who didn't truly see her thought she was all better, but those like her mentor recognized a step they had taken in their own grieving and knew she was _far_ from better.

She had willed herself to forget, begged her mind to wander, but she _couldn't _forget the sick anniversary. It had been exactly twenty-nine days since her lunatic dreams had invaded her head, and she had decided it was the moon's fault. Seeing the moon reminded her of him.

_Because he was the Moon._

Solid.

_Strong_.

Pale.

_Devastatingly beautiful_.

Untouchable.

_Unreachable_.

Encased only by a halo of darkness.

_Covered in craters and wounds of the past, never to be healed fully and sure to gain more in the future._

Surrounded by bright lights who longed only to illuminate the constant shadow.

_But unable to touch those radiant stars._

He was the moon, but so was she.

It was the moon causing her insane dreams—that was it.

This time, however, she vowed not to let him interfere again, and just to make sure he wouldn't (not even in her nightmares), she took a sleeping pill that would knock her out cold (hopefully waving away any dreams) before she ended her eerily calm, unfrenzied routine.

-

She felt him there; she didn't sense his presence sitting on her windowsill, no! She _felt _his body on hers, his lips on hers, his hand twining with hers. She slowly unlidded her dazed, green eyes and looked into his, and she was dazzled by his charcoal depths, confident smirk, and tousled, silken locks. It wasn't fair how beautiful he was! It wasn't fair for any one man to be able to incite such lust in her! It wasn't fair that she should hate him for all the pain he caused her, but all she could do was love him at that moment. A strong hand slid up her smooth, bare thigh and under her short, simple nightdress, gliding over her stomach with such grace. His air-soft lips gently drifted over her neck, constricting her breathing with the touch of a feather. She tilted her head back, begging for more of his awakening touch, begging to feel again. One month of unfeeling left her drained, so she succumbed to her fear, her anger, her guilt, her lust, her love. She let the waves of emotions roll over her, yet she didn't drown as she expected. She stayed gently afloat, hovering softly above rage and hate and fright and blame. She would give to him whatever he asked, just as long as he continued to bring life back into her veins. Years and months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds of pain and the agony of _nothing_ had worn her.

_A dream. Can I only feel alive in a dream?_

The thought didn't quite hit her, just drifted above her head, and she didn't care anymore. She just wanted to feel life again, and his touches seared her with _feelings_. And he was far gentler than she remembered, but it _was _in her dreams, after all. He charily held himself above her in order to avoid crushing her petite frame. The way his lips caressed hers was so chaste, so delicate that they wouldn't have broken the thinnest thread of silk, left a spider's web completely unmarred. Dreams, it occurred to her, didn't all have to be nightmares (or so she desperately hoped).

She kissed him back, but so tentatively, so slightly, for she thought the slightest movement would wake her into her nightmarish reality. Her pink lips made another contact with his, and she couldn't help but inhale deeply his scent, a breath of life. She carefully wrapped an alabaster arm around his moonlit neck and brought him down on her again, threading her fingers through his hair. She gripped the hand that held hers slightly tighter_._ She resisted allowing their mouths to collide for just a moment, but then she disregarded whatever thought had stopped her and let their bodies meld, his long hair dusting her forehead and cheeks. She hadn't been _touched _in so long, let alone kissed (ever). But it felt so perfect, and she knew she was dreaming (but she didn't quite notice). He felt so experienced and powerful above her, and she let him guide her lips with his until she found a soft, delicate rhythm to follow. She felt his tongue deftly flick across her bottom lip, and she parted for him while she traced her dainty fingers over her love's strong, muscled shoulder, imprinting her hallucination into her mind as well as she could.

He was taking everything so slowly, being so careful with her, savoring every second. It was (ironically) everything she had ever dreamed of, and she felt complete with his body joining with hers like a puzzle piece. He stroked her tongue with his and twisted around it as he put his weight on his left elbow and cupped her cheek with his right hand, leisurely rubbing his thumb over her cheek bone. He pulled away just quickly enough for both of them to catch a quick breath and then descended on her body again. She felt so warm in his arms, so at _home _in her own house for the first time in years.

_Home is wherever he is, _she realized.

He began to nibble ever so gently at her lips as she became more confident in her explorations of his mouth. She traced his teeth with curiosity and wonder, lovingly gliding over his tongue with hers.

She loved being kissed. She loved being held. She loved being caressed. She loved feeling another heartbeat on her. She loved just being touched. She loved loving him.

But most of all, she loved feeling alive for the first time in years.

And then came the grief—it had finally sunk it. A _dream_—it was a _dream_. She knew such pure elation, joy, happiness, ecstasy would soon end. The tears came shortly after her realization that she was _dreaming_, dreaming the bliss she felt!

And she kissed him fiercely.

_Do you see what you do to me?! _she thought. _Do you know?!_

She arched her body into his and began to suck on his tongue and dig her nails into his scalp. He bit on her lip, and a low growl rumbled from his throat in response. He refused to leave his genteel ways for passion. She surrendered (as she always had and always would) to his demands and allowed him to break their link. He lowered his cheek on her shoulder and nearly panted on her neck before placing more kisses along it. She panted out ragged breaths, nearly sobbing from her sudden onslaught of anguish. He rolled off her and to her left. He gently pulled her small body to his and hugged her to him. The kisses he planted on her roamed across her shoulder and down her bare arm.

In an instant, she dried her tears and turned to him. She slowly placed butterfly kisses down his neck, lower and lower until she reached the white, cottony material of his yukata.

"Make me feel alive," she whispered as she parted the material.

The further down she trailed, the more he seemed to stiffen and strain. She stopped and looked to him; his face was serene perfection, but his eyes betrayed him. Those dark pools held a volatile medley of emotions she could not pinpoint. He lidded his eyes and gracefully shook his head as he pulled her back into his arms. He kissed her forehead and nestled into her so he breathed on her ear and the steady drumming of his heart would lull her. And no matter how much she knew she should be angry or miserable or lustful or heartbroken or guilty, she closed her eyes in complete tranquility; she opened them the next second, and he was gone; in his place was the blinding sun (but he was the sun).

_

* * *

Well, now you know where the title and the summary came from! Speaking of the summary…one of you guys made a certain important connection about the summary to the actual story…. (It was in a PM, so don't try looking through the reviews. :P) Just thought I'd mention that 'cause it's important to the way I'm telling the story and how certain people act in it.…_

_I wonder if anybody will guess it.… ;) Surprise me._

_Next chapter gets a little NC17.… Just warning you now. (:_

_* Oh, and some random trivia: This entire story is based off a set of my diary entries; I suppose this is an odd way of coming to terms with things._


	4. Chapter 4: Gibbous

"Leave my dreams as you've left my life." But he couldn't, he wouldn't, he _hadn't_. He was the Moon, but so was she. And in the light of the Moon and the cover of dreams, he went to her.

This short story is dark, and it contains sexually explicit and graphic material along with other mature material. You've been warned.

_I wrote this intending it to be read __very slowly__. It started off as an extremely long oneshot, but I decided to make it a short story. –Sigh- This story is __dark__. It explores grief and guilt and agony and anger and lust and love and sorrow and just plain pain to an extreme. You have been warned for the impending darkness and mature material. Listening to my suggested song really adds so much more to it, or it did while I was writing it. Also, a bit of knowledge of the phases of the moon would be a good idea._

Dark! NC17!

Sorry it's been a while, guys. It seems I only get the time to write these days when I'm sick and have to miss school. I ought to be studying for exams...but who the hell cares? Haha... So I hope you guys had a nicer Thanksgiving than I did, seeing as how I was sick and all! Anyways, this chapter FINALLY gets to some real romancing, if you catch my drift. So enjoy. ;)

Jukebox: "Let Go" by _Red _(If you hadn't noticed, _Red _is pretty much the soundtrack to this story.)

* * *

"He was the Moon"

月

Chapter Four: Gibbous

Her damn dreams! Her goddamn, fucking dreams!

_Why? Why? _

But she knew why.

_I'm guilty. I'm guilty. It's my fault and mine alone. My fault. All my fault. _

His last words to her rang in her head as they did every day.

_**Thank you.**_

_**Thank you.**_

_**Thank you.**_

_For what? What have I ever done to truly help you? _

She found herself weeping, sobbing hysterically from the guilt, the pain, the love, the lust, the dream—her dream.

_I love you. Come back to me. Come back to me… Come back to me… Come back to me… _"Come back to me… Come back to me! Come back! COME BACK! **C-COME BACK**!" _But he won't, will he? _She knew the answer, and it only increased her wailing. _If he only comes to me in my dreams, then I live only to dream._

It was a strange revelation…. It was an odd idea…. It was the _truth._

And for another month she lived only for her dream, waiting for her moons, the one in the sky and the one in her heart, her dreams. She put herself on autopilot until the evening she had longed for arrived, but _he_ didn't. Only _one_ moon shone in the night.

—

_Was it the right date? _

She leapt from her bed and ran to her kitchen; she frantically flipped through her calendar; it _had _been the right day.

_Why didn't he come to me? Why? Why? _

She was close to tears, but then she reminded herself it was a dream. He was a dream, an apparition her mind created, a phantasmal hallucination. Her happiness was a dream; any joy she had felt these past few months was a mere mirage. She had lived an entire month for an illusion that did not come to her.

She had _lived for nothing._

It brought her crumpling to her hands and knees, along with a nearly empty sake bottle and a vile of pills, eyes wide and fistfuls of her own hair clamped in her hands. She yanked at her damask tendrils as she stared, openmouthed, at the shining shards of herself on the ground that were slowly being surrounded by red, her chest heaving and sobbing.

_If not for my dreams, then what do I live for now? Live for him—the one who will never return to my life? What do I live for? What do I...?_

She had gone from only one, to no reason at all for life, and it broke her in a way she hadn't expected, for she hadn't thought there was any part of her left un-shattered. But she was, and she sat, crumpled, amongst the glass and floating tablets, not even noticing the splinters protruding from the milky skin of her wrist, not feeling the sting and burn of the alcohol in her wounds, until her mentor found her…two hours later…bathing in a pool of her own cooled blood.

The blonde woman wore an aghast mien as she saw her student hunched over in a sea of vermillion, eyes the size of her balled fists. The elder bent to her apprentice and quickly checked her pulse. It was so very faint, but it was there. She swiftly dropped two maroon pills in the girl's open mouth and healed the quivering girl's physical wounds, but she knew she could do nothing to even begin healing the remaining injuries to her mutilated heart. She took the girl's red hands as she helped her up and silently walked her to the bathroom; she drew a bath for the girl. She charily helped her into the hot water and spoke very softly: "You shouldn't drink sake…especially not with sleeping pills."

"I shouldn't be alive for what I allowed to happen."

"You're _lucky_ to be alive with all the blood you've lost! How can you-?" She stopped herself before she went further. "It's not your fault. The village knew what was bound to happen; we knew, but we didn't take any precautions! We did nothing to stop it…." She looked her student in her dead eyes. "You can't live like this!"

"You are correct."

The elder couldn't respond, only gape.

"I let the Snake get him, let the bastard of the Three sink his fangs into my love and swallow him whole! I deserve to live like this. No. I deserve so much _worse_ than this…."

The powerful woman didn't know how to respond, for as she looked into her student's blank, muted eyes, she saw her old self, a person not too unfamiliar. But the girl she loved so much didn't even have a tomb to mourn. It brought water glistening in her eyes, and she said, "You will learn to live again, my student, but you have to accept it. Accept the fact that he's gone and never coming back. Accept that you need another reason…another reason…" The woman choked softly and swallowed her heart ache. "Another reason to choose life."

"I don't have another reason. I'll never have another reason. _He _is my reason, and he's gone." _I'm gone._

"Time, sweetheart, will give you another reason. Only time." And she left, leaving the girl staring vacantly at the tiles of her shower until her eyes finally closed and the redness caking her hands melted away (but it _never_ would; her hands would _always _be stained forever red)...

—

He was there, glowering gravely at her and leaning against her bathroom wall.

"You're late," she nearly spat sarcasm across the room, and she smiled as his intensely dark grimace grew tauter. She saw such fury in his face, and she loved it. _I'm finally extracting some emotion from you, love._

He clenched his fists and snarled at her, baring his glinting teeth wildly. He quickly calmed himself with a deep sigh, retracting into his emotionless pall. In a black flash, he was kneeling beside the tub, stroking her wet hair gently. His other hand dipped a finger into the cold water, and a moment later it was steaming.

"Why only in my dreams, my hallucinations…? Why won't you come back to me in reality?"

He only smirked, leaned over the tub, and planted a searing kiss on her, far steamier than the bath water. She immediately latched onto him and yanked at his midnight locks. He rumbled in warning, but she blatantly ignored him.

_It's _my_ dream, after all._

She used her chakra-enhanced strength to pull him forcefully closer to her, leaving him nearly sprawled above her and the water. He supported himself with a hand on the corner of the bathtub and allowed her fervent kiss, her tongue lapping against his with fire. She could feel him losing his control, falling deeper and deeper into her arms and their kiss and becoming so much more demanding. He tilted her head back against the tile in order to plunge his tongue further into her mouth, his white yukata drenched in the hot water. While still kissing her mouth, he drew away, slipped the soaking garment off, and allowed their bare chests to touch for the first time. The feeling of his skin on hers turned her replenished blood into magma.

There it was again—the feeling of life bursting through her veins. Then he stopped, just long enough to lift her dripping, limp body from the water. He drew her to him so tightly that she couldn't breathe, but she wasn't breathing anyway. She allowed him to drag her ragdoll-like body wherever he pleased, for she was completely absorbed in everything that was him.

Every one of her senses was on overload of him. Her ears were filled with the luscious sounds of his soft groans and pants, the noises of their lips squelching together wildly, the need in his heavy breathing, the soft thump and tinkling of something his strong body knocked over in their travels. Her skin was set aflame with every part of him touching her naked body, his fingers digging lightly into her ribs as he dragged her, his wet, delicious tongue flicking at hers, his hard arms smashing her slight body into his silken chest, his bangs tickling her cheeks while he bent to kiss her. The taste of him was to die for (quite literally); he was so sultry and spicy, yet he also managed to have a sensuously saccharine taste to him. And she couldn't get enough of him, would never get enough of him, could never get enough of him. Every movement her tongue made in his mouth only made her long for more of him-so, so much more.

In the midst of their stumbling movements, she decided sight was by far her favorite sense. Just looking at him made her blood boil. His wet chest shining in the light of the moon, his cold eyes that were so suddenly aflame reflecting the moonlight at her, his tousled hair grasped in her fingers (never to be let go again), his unbearably smooth and hard torso flexing against her bare midriff (forcing unbearable heat to pool there), his impossibly long legs tangling with hers yet somehow still managing to move them both to her bed.

He didn't lower her gently, but rather he fell atop her, never breaking their connection. He launched himself fully onto her, leaving her so utterly dominated. He took a hold of her wrists and spread her arms apart, leaving her mouth purely for air. His muscled arms and back flexed so deliciously in his position, still wet and glistening from the steaming bathwater. The moonlight did horribly wonderful, sinful things to his body, illuminating every taut movement, accentuating every contour, bathing his godliness in an even more ethereal aura.

"Oh god… Oh god… Please, _please_…" she begged, but she didn't know what exactly she wanted. And then she knew: "Make me...feel alive."

A lust-crazed grin spread across his face, and he lowered himself ever so slightly on her while still keeping a grip on her wrists. He knelt to flick his tongue across one of her pert nipples, loving how she arched fully off her bed to him and moaned her approval. He latched onto her, sucking and swirling his wet tongue anywhere he could reach. She writhed underneath him—the heat was excruciating already. A few more long licks and loud sucks, and he traveled lower down her perfect body, pausing to delve his tongue into her bellybutton.

She couldn't take much more of his sweet torture, so she pleaded nonsense: "Please, please… I-I-I want it… Please…" The delectable ache between her legs was impossible to bear.

She felt the heat of his face drawing nearer and nearer to where the fire in her veins was pooling. She didn't even notice how her eyes were clenched shut, how her hands held fistfuls of her sheets, how moans and gasps flowed from her mouth as water from a river. A soft stroke between her wet folds had her panting and thrashing for more. The torturous finger grazed her clitoris for just a second, but she nearly screamed.

"Fuck!" she hissed as those talented fingers circled her over-sensitized skin.

She didn't notice how her hands had been free for a long while. She didn't notice how her body jumped upwards as he touched her. She didn't notice how she had no control over herself, but she didn't care. What he did to her felt so good, so fantastic! A slick finger gently slid into her, caressing her from the inside. She drew in a hiss of air. "Aaah!" It was _so_ good; everywhere he touched seemed to burn up in flames in seconds, and she loved it. That long finger of his was soon joined by another, stretching and pleasuring her further.

"Too much!" she breathed. "Too…much…!"

She ceased her words as she felt his velvety lips and tongue tracing nonsense up and down her abdomen. His roaming fingers increased their tempo inside her; her body rose and then fell into a jerking heap as he explored deeper inside her and his thumb added more pressure on her external bundle of nerves.

Her gasps and cries of pleasured nonsense filled the room. "Yes, yes! Please… Don't stop!"

He smiled against her stomach and sped up his movements, pushing his fingers in and out of her so quickly that she couldn't catch her breath between moans.

"I need it! I need—hah-aah—_you_!" she gasped. She felt something new; she felt the muscles behind her bellybutton begin to tighten and strain deliciously. Her hips moved desperately to meet him, and she begged for more: "So good, so good. Don't stop…don't—ah!—s-stop!" For the first time in her life, the water dripping down from her eyes was the product of pleasure. And then the pressure building inside of her caused her to implode. "Aa-aah! Yes, yes, oh, _yes_…!" And then she couldn't bring her mouth to form words anymore, to form his name on her tongue; the pleasure was too great, crushing and completely overwhelming. His fingers kept touching her, continued to draw pleasure from her until another implosion came…and another. He didn't stop until she pleaded with him to: "Please, I—aah!—can't take it…! T-too much!" She was soaked in the products of her pleasure and sweat and panting as though her lungs were completely porous.

Finally, he withdrew his fingers from her skin. She opened her eyes to see him smiling a feral grin of masculine satisfaction and lust, panting and sweating in his ordeal to control himself. He brought his shining fingers to his lips and shuddered as he tasted her on them; again, a tremor ran through his tense body. When he saw her red mouth fall agape, letting out a shaky moan at his action, he groaned as if in horrific agony, and she saw the source of his pain, straining against the zip of his pants.

She reached for him and pulled him down on her to slide her lips across his, one hand making its way down his long body to his hips, which instinctually flexed into her fingers. Yet he rumbled in warning when one of her fingers slid beneath the black fabric to search for a button to pop open. And when that finger found what it sought he went completely rigid and stilled all his movements, save for a desperate noise he let slip through his lips and onto hers.

"Please," she whispered to his mouth, "let me..."

He hovered over her in limbo, in anguished indecision, grimacing in his turmoil.

"_Please_," she whispered her plea to his lips again, "just let me-!"

He silenced her with a cruelly chaste kiss. He withdrew, mournfully shaking his head.

"Why?" she questioned as she fell limply back on the sheets, her limbs feeling wonderfully unconnected. She was so _sated _yet she longed to give him the same pleasure he had given her. She felt his body lift off of hers and hit the mattress to her side, his fingers trailing over her expanse of exposed skin in soothing circles. Her weighted eyelids began to drift downward, and she couldn't stop the sudden satisfied somnolence that overcame her, as his lips softly trailed down her neck. "Please... Please don't leave me, not tonight... Please don't...don't leave..." she murmured, her voice waning as sleep overpowered her desperation to stay awake, to stay with the Moon.

—

Of course, the Moon couldn't stay 'til morning.

But he did leave her with something different, something more tangible than the haunting sense of his absence from the sky and from her life...

_

* * *

Hehehe. I'm so damn cryptic: there is a clue in this chapter; it's significance shall be revealed in my next update...but I'm hoping somebody out there can make an educated guess as to what I'm talking about. Happy hunting! ;) And I'd love to hear your guesses and any other comments you guys have...so PLEASE review. :)_

XOXO

Endoh


End file.
